Good Friday 2016, stations event

Following up on the initial post on our Good Friday event this year, here are some more details about the evolution of the event.

Our community has a history of sponsoring a community Good Friday service. It is one of the last in a series of services sponsored by the clergy association in town. It takes place at midday. Our church has supported this service, and the whole series for several years, so we have avoided adding anything of our own to Good Friday that might take away from the population for the community service. I offered a sacred concert of organ music for a couple of years, feeling that this was different enough from a worship service that it would not detract from the community service, and that it was also not going to even attempt to draw the same crowd that would attend a "regular" worship service. I have also had our choir offer choral music on Good Friday in recent years, with the same thinking in mind.

This stations event would build on that concept: it would target persons who might not normally go to the community service, and it would not be a "service" in the typical sense. We were hopeful a good cross-section of our congregation's demographic would attend, especially families with children. And we felt the "art" aspect would really separate it in the minds of our community.

Planning with our artists was very gratifying. They had plenty of ideas of creative ways to explore Bible passages for Good Friday. Ultimately we decided to expand and somewhat superficially cover all of Holy Week beginning with Palm Sunday, but avoid any hint at Easter, all without it being a "gloomy" event. We settled on 6 stations with 8 "projects. It was a very dynamic exchange with lots of adjustments as I offered possible Bible passages, to which the artists offered possible art projects. We wanted everything to be attainable by even young children, but yet wanted the whole evening to provide enough theological heft to appeal to older adults.

By this point we knew we wanted to offer food at the event and settled on a specific time-frame during which food would be available, with folks coming and going at will from the other aspects of the evening. We also wanted to have our sanctuary available as a quiet place for prayer. These really became two additional stations, the dining hall being a chance to reflect on the last supper Jesus shared with his followers, and the sanctuary emblematic of Jesus praying in the garden prior to his arrest.

Next post I'll go into detail with the specific stations and the art projects.

Good Friday Stations, part 1

In spring of 2015 the local paper ran an article about an artist with an exhibition taking place around Easter time. Without going back to re-read and get the details, what I recall was that the artist had a series of works that invited the viewer to consider the Easter story and the renewal of creation as individuals walked through the installation. I never even got around to see the exhibit, but something about the article struck me and stuck. A month later I was talking with our worship committee about an idea for an interactive Good Friday experience that relied on art to let/help persons recall and meditate on the Good Friday story. I wanted an experience that would be meaningful for adults, but 100% approachable by children. Our committee worked on the concept all year.

What evolved was an evening-long experience in which persons could drop-in, participate and leave on their own, much like those horrid drop-in communion services we've all heard of! We wanted a series of "stations" purposefully recalling the "stations of the cross" model of Good Friday worship. Each station would be an art project, based on a Bible verse which persons could complete quickly and either take home of leave for others to view. We wanted to provide food, as we anticipated that we would run the event throughout the dinner hour. We wanted older, traditionally-minded folks, to feel like they had experienced something substantive when they were done; and we wanted children to feel like they had encountered the Bible story in a mode they could comprehend. We knew we would need the help of committees apart from our own to bring it off.

The event was last night. Upcoming posts will deal with it in some detail. We feel it was a success, though we are waiting to hear more from those who participated. It's the nature of the event and how it was billed that we didn't do much debriefing as folks departed.

Organ tune

To partner with our recent sermon series, relating to questions about our faith from a child's perspective, I used John Leavitt's "Scenes of Childhood" for some of the organ music at our second service. The sermon series addressed questions about our faith that were asked by children in our congregation. The music by Leavitt seemed to me a natural choice to pair with worship during the series. The series concluded today with a sermon related to what heaven is like. I used the final movement from Leavitt's suite for the postlude.

Leavitt in turn used poetry by Robert Louis Stevenson as the inspiration for his music. The composer intended that the poems be read before/after the performance of the music; we simply print excerpts in our printed bulletins. The last piece is called "Pirate Story" drawn from a poem of the same name. The piece begins with a riff on "Sailor's Hornpipe" and concludes with a riff on the Little Prelude in C attributed to JS Bach. Folks were immediately captivated by the music, many of them associating the music with the Popeye the Sailor Man television show from several decades ago. To help put the music in perspective, I tracked down a short summary of the tune.

While this sermon series has been going on, have also utilized art work by children from our congregation in our narthex gallery area. We currently have up work by older elementary children; it was preceded by work by younger elementary children. In mid-August we'll feature work by middle- and high-school students. It's been enjoyable having so much to connect to worship, and to celebrate the earnest questions children have about our faith, and their work in the arts, and music (and poetry) for them.

(After a quick look it seems the music is out of print, else I would put a link to it..)

Summer art series

Our sermon series on questions of faith from a child's perspective winds down this week, but our art installation continues. The first installment featured art by children who completed Kindergarten and grades1, 2 and 3this spring. This week we shifted to the artwork of older elementary children, who have completed grades 4 and 5. The work of young artists will continue through summer; in a few weeks we'll trade out with work by middle- and high-school students.

No more troubbable

Our performance of The Troubabble of Zerubbabel went really, really well. The kids nailed their songs and their lines; the band was awesome. The crew did great with set changes and props. Our costumes were stunning; our "Adversaries" brought the house down! Here's one picture, but you can view a slideshow of the dress rehearsal and reception following the performance in the sidebar. Thanks to all the kids, all the parents and everyone who helped make it happen.

Zerub-a-who?

That would be Zerubbabel, a governor of the Hebrew people during the Babylonian exile. Zerubbabel led the exiles on their return from exile, and directed the building of the second temple. He's also the subject of a nifty children's musical which you can see in performance this coming Sunday afternoon at 5PM at BMPCNC. Please join us!

The Aerie Singers (kids in grades 3-4-5-6 who participate in Logos) having been learning about Zerubbabel and the music and dialog for this musical since last September. Winter weather wrought havoc with our schedule, leading to extra rehearsals. But the time has come to the musical to come to life.

Written by Will Anderson The Troubbable of Zerubbabel was written specifically for children's singing voices. Through drama and music children tell the story of the Persian king's proclamation that the Hebrew people should return home to Jerusalem under the leadership of their governor, and further instruction that they should commence a project to rebuild the temple for the worship of Yahweh. The plot thickens as adversaries seek to thwart the progress, but through prayer and faith in God, the building (the Second Temple) is completed.

A hearty band of Aerie Singers cover the majority of dramatic roles and sing the songs. The Adversaries will be portrayed in this production by two tough guys from our congregation. Musical accompaniment in the original musical score is for piano; we will hear our house band the Prophets of Praise (with a couple of extra musicians and playing from a score crafted by Mike Barker) in this production.

Vance S. (Zerubbabel) and Lillie C. (Narrator) have the two lead roles. Dave Bell and Dan Stitt will dig deep into their dramatic wells to play the "tough guys."

The performance on Sunday May 23 begins at 5PM and is free. Come enjoy the show, learn a little Bible and support a fine group of young musicians as they share the culmination of months of work and fun.

Children's Musical

Our Logos children's choirs recently presented a little musical, Through the Roof, by Terry Kirkland and published by Cokesbury-Abingdon Press. The kids did a great job: the singing was wonderful and the speakers did remarkably well. We (that is Kent and Nicholas Patton) made new frames for backdrops, then we asked Sara LeVan to design the backdrop, and let her guide the sixth-graders in doing the painting. Their work is in the background of these photos. Here are a couple of shots of some of the leads. Mary (above) was the Scribe and Ben was Jesus.